Takeda caught your attention in February when it thrashed out strategic development alliances with Covance and Quintiles. The agreements were part of what Takeda said was its ‘global program-level sourcing strategy´.

More recently, UBC announced it was looking to expand in a bid to attract more partnerships. The firm’s new president Rob Epstein told Outsourcing-Pharma it has been approached by clients similar to its star players Sanofi and Pfizer.

Quintiles made the headlines just last week with its deal with Intarcia, which it claimed could change the way the industry thinks about outsourcing. Under the alliance, Quintiles will provide both finance and researchers to work on Intarcia's new Duros Type 2 diabetes tech.